


Potée de Pierre Fabuleuse

by Thimblerig



Series: The Tenner [11]
Category: Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms, Keiserens nye Klæder | The Emperor's New Clothes - Hans Christian Andersen, Original Work, Stone Soup (Fairy Tale)
Genre: Gen, Myths and Fairy Tales, The Tenner, Tricksters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:14:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23542957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thimblerig/pseuds/Thimblerig
Summary: Day 6 - The Gift of Betrayal
Relationships: Adeleide (OC) & Bertilak (OC)
Series: The Tenner [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1680610
Kudos: 2
Collections: The Tenner





	Potée de Pierre Fabuleuse

__

_It is later that night, when Lady Yekaterina and her guests partake of a light supper. She gazes reflectively at the porcelain bowl set before her, adorned with painted indigo flowers around the rim, and dips her silver spoon into the clear green soup inside. “Once upon a time,” she announces to her guests, “once upon a time there were two rogues who delighted in mendacity…”_

* * *

**Potée de Pierre Fabuleuse**

* * *

Once upon a time there were two rogues who delighted in mendacity.

Adeleide, if you told her the sky were blue, would diligently explain that it was truly “periwinkle” even if a close consultation of the _Indice di Colore del Vetro Colorato_ kept by the Doge of the Drowned Cities would reveal that the exact shade was “ultramarine”. She was incorrigible.

Her partner, or rival, or friend, or lover, was named Bertilak, and he dreamed fondly of giving false confession on his deathbed. The less that could be said of that the better.

One dark and stormy night, Adeleide and Bertilak were trudging along a narrow mountain road that wound higher and higher into the vertiginous peaks. They were leaving a prior engagement as weavers and tailors to a gentleman of high degree, and though their diaphanous silks and delicate gauzes had led to a breezy, joyful time for the populace in the town square - and educational also! - they thought it best to leave before the final round of applause.

They came upon a village that seemed set upon by disaster - what houses had not met with fire had been cracked by rolling stones from the high mountains, and those that had been afflicted by neither showed a creeping green mold that harboured illness, or at least, looked like it should. Only the Town Hall in the heart of the village had light in it, and warmth. They pounded on the door.

Reluctantly, it creaked open, held by a wary man on the inside. Adeleide immediately declaimed, “Imagine! Leaving your Aunt Addie out in the cold!”

The man inside said, “Uh!”

“Here I am, content to perch in the corner and weave and spin, and mind the children -”

“Not to mention your Uncle B,” said Bertilak, “so diligent in the fields and orchards -”

“ - to let us stand out here and shiver. Tchah!” exclaimed Adeleide.

“Tchah!” mourned Bertilak.

And they swept inside before the doorkeeper had more to say on the matter.

It was warm in the great hall, though dim, but though it was the time for making supper, or warm soup, or for baking fragrant barley cakes on the hearth stones… nobody ate. Adeleide peered at a bundle of carrots half-hidden under a woman’s homespun skirts. Bertilak’s sharp eyes noted a cured ham stuffed into a corner and guarded against all comers. There had been Hard Times in this village, and all inside were terrified of losing what they had to a hungrier mouth, and so - no-one ate. Adeleide’s stomach grumbled. Bertilak’s knees shook with impending starvation.

They lifted themselves up to their full height (which was not, to be honest, a good deal) and announced that, tonight, the meal would be _on them._

From a pocket, one of her many pockets, Adeleide produced a rock - a very pretty rock, with shades of turquoise (or possibly periwinkle) peeping through the grey. She showed it to the crowds as a thing of wonder, through which she, and people she loved, might never go hungry. Bertilak requested the simple boon of a cauldron of water and time and space at the hearth to cook. “For,” said he, _“Potée de Pierre Fabuleuse_ is no simple meal, it is _gourmet,_ for people of Taste and Distinction.”

The people were all very hungry, and food is always just a little bit fancier when someone else cooks it for you, and soon Adeleide and Bertilak were hovering over their gently bubbling cauldron. They exclaimed, as they stirred it, how savoury, how fragrant. “But,” said Bertilak thoughtfully, “it needs a little something.”

“Nothing but the best for these good people,” said Adeleide.

“Perhaps a little salt, do you think?”

“Alas,” said she, “I have none.”

One of the villagers heard and - very hungry, and very much looking forward to being fed - volunteered a small handful of coarse white grains. Adeleide and Bertilak thanked him enthusiastically, for they wanted only to give of their best this night. But then, Adeleide remarked, _sotto voce,_ “If only we had some carrots, I always prefer the Tuscany variation of _Potée de Pierre Fabuleuse._

Well. Who wouldn’t volunteer perhaps one bunch of carrots for the _Tuscany_ variant?

And so it went. A little stock, some chopped up onions, ham boiled off the bones and the marrow dissolving gently into the broth… Around midnight, there was a very good cauldron of pottage to be had, fragrant with herbs and rich with meat and tender vegetables. All in the hall ate well, and slept better, except for Adeleide and Bertilak, who slipped out with the dawn.

They had dined very well that night. But what was better, the important thing, the _best thing…_

They had done it through trickery.

* * *

_”And I have always eaten well in the company of Adeleide and Bertilak,” Lady Yekaterina remarks. “Though I must caution you that, also, they always steal my spoons…”_


End file.
